Sampson Coburn

Quick Facts

Significance:

Patriot of Color at the Battle of Bunker Hill

Place of Birth:

Cape Ann, Massachusetts(?)

The following is from the 2004 National Park Service study Patriots of Color researched and prepared by George Quintal:

Nothing is known of the early life of Sampson Coburn.^I A town history describes him as ‘colored.’^II By reaching the rank of Corporal (and if we accept the assertion that he was indeed a man of color), he was the highest ranking soldier in this study.

He joined the eight month’s service from Cape Ann on 20 May 1775, as a Corporal, in the company of Capt. Oliver Parker, in Col. William Prescott’s regiment.^III This company served in the Battle of Bunker Hill in the redoubt, after which command fell to Lt. Nathaniel Sartwell. On 18 June 1775, one day after the Battle, he was listed on an order ‘for cartridge boxes dated Camp at Cambridge.’^IV This is a strong sign of participation in the Battle. On 22 June 1775, he served on the main guard under Lt. Col. Loammi Baldwin.^V He is also listed on the 1 August 1775 roll^VI and was recorded as ‘absent’ on the October 1775 roll of the company under Capt. Ephraim Corey.^VII On 31 October 1775 his name was on an ‘order for bounty coat or its equivalent in money dated Camp at Cambridge.’^VIII

On 2 January 1776, he was on a list of men ‘who delivered firelocks.’^IX He was one of a group of men who agreed to enlist to serve until 1 April 1776.^X

Footnotes:

1. There was ‘Samson Coburn’ b. 19 July 1745, the son of Ezra and Thankful Richardson, ‘a Revolutionary soldier in 1776’ recorded in Genealogy of the Descendants of Edward Colburn (1913), 44. This man does not seem to be a man of color – some intensive checking could not produce a definitive answer on whether there were two men by the same name or on whether one or both is truly a man of color.
2. Coburn, Silas R. History of Dracut Massachusetts … (1922), 339.
3. Secretary of the Commonwealth. Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War (1896-1908) 3:736, listed as ‘Colbourn, Samson.’ Also 2-CD Family Tree Maker^TM set “Military Records: Revolutionary War.”
4. Ibid 3:685, listed as ‘Cobbron, Samson.’
5. Ibid 3:693, listed as ‘Coburn, Samson.’
6. Ibid 3:736.
7. Ibid 3:743, listed as ‘Colburn, Samson.’
8. Ibid 3:693.
9. Ibid 3:687, listed as ‘Cobourn, Sampson.’
10. Ibid 3:694, listed as ‘Coburn, Samson.’

Learn more about Quintal's study.